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Parenting as the Question

Being a Questionable Parent…a parent who lives as the question!

Our children are awareness. From the day they are born they are incredibly aware; so aware that they do not separate who they are from their awareness of all the energies around them. This slowly changes around two years of age, when they start to also know who they are. Whenever I can, whatever it takes, I am here to assist my children, and myself, in increasing this ability to know. One of the greatest gifts we can offer our children is to honor their awareness, to acknowledge that they know, whenever they know. Telling them what they should think or what they should know, whether it is to protect them from the “horrors” of the world or to force them to get our point of view of how they should be, does not help them to be aware, it shuts their awareness down! Awareness, for most of us at first, is light as a feather; it is often missed in this reality because it is rarely acknowledged. The more it is acknowledged, the more ticklish that feather becomes until it starts to become too difficult to ignore. Every time we acknowledge when we are aware, we give more tickle to that feather.

When we say, How does it get better than this? Each time we have awareness. We increase this ability. If you stop or shut down someone’s knowing you dis-empower them, and with each disempowerment they may disconnect more and more from their own ability to be aware. Their ability to be aware of what works for them, what they would like to choose to make them happy, what they would like to choose to nourish their body, and their ability to perceive the lies that exist all around. The gift of their awareness allows them to make choices from consciousness rather than from what they have been told. We have all had our knowing invalidated in this reality over and over again for lifetime after lifetime. It is one reason we can stay so stuck in this limited reality. What will it take to change this, and what will it take to acknowledge our children for their amazing gifts of awareness?

Bring Your Body with YOU

Bring Your Body with YOU by Marnie Barranco

Did you know you have a body? Stupid question right? Or is it? How often do we ignore our body completely? Or, if we’re not ignoring it, we’re judging it. Comparing it to others. Not liking certain aspects of our body because we’ve decided it’s less than perfect. And yet, our body just kindly, faithfully takes care of us. Heart keeps pumping. Lungs keep breathing. Legs keep walking.

There’s a line from a song by Tim Minchin called “Not Perfect” that I love. In one particular part of the song he is referring to his body and he says, “Here’s the really weird thing, I’ve spent so much time hating it (body) and it never says a bad word about me.”

Yeah… that.

My body and I have come a long way. I have apologized for the judgments I have hurled at it. I’ve acknowledged the gift that it is. And, yet, sometimes, I still forget to include it as I go about each day, living life.

Over the past year, I have had lots of change. I made the demand that I step up, choose me and BE me. And all of that is showing up, faster than I could have imagined.

One day, walking through the grocery store, my body asked me a question. It was quite clear. The question was, “Hey. You’ve been changing so fast. How about bringing me along with you?”

I stopped and let that question sink in. It was in that moment that I realized, if I actually included my body in the change I was choosing, I would create more change with more ease. Choosing to gift my body what it required, would allow my body to assist me even more.

Right then and there, I made a choice; actually a few choices. I made the choice to bring my body along with the change I was choosing. I made the choice to include my body in everything I do and to create WITH it. I made the choice to assist my body by gifting it the support and the energies it desires and required.

I went straight home and signed up for 3 Access 3-Day Body classes and started asking each and every day, “If I were creating WITH my body, what would I choose?”

I am so grateful for all of the tools that Access Consciousness offers and especially grateful that the body is included in what they offer. The 3 Day Body Classes are designed to open up a dialogue and create a communion with your body that allows you to enjoy your body instead of fighting against it and abusing it. When you start to change the way you relate to your body, you start to change how you relate to everything in your life.

Would you like to bring your body along with all the change you’ve been choosing? How much more would that create for you and your body? Would an Access Consciousness 3 Day Body Class contribute to that?

No More Sick Kids!

Since the have been attending Access classes, my children very rarely have colds. If they do start having cold symptoms they usually go away quickly, and never last more than a day. In the past 13 years I have not missed one day of work for a sick child. Before I had the tools of Access and was less willing to be aware, a sick child created so much stress in my life. I would have to miss work, arrange doctor visits, and care for an unhappy, sick child who was in pain. Now, I realize that my children are aware and that they know. One of the things we discovered in Access is that when people are sick it is usually because they have decided they are sick of something. I ask my kids, what are you sick of? They will say things like, I am sick of homework; my dad being angry; chores; kids at school. Once they use the Access tool to destroy and un-create their fixed point of views, their symptoms disappear. The truth is that conscious, aware children do not want to be ill; when given the choice, they will gladly get rid of their symptoms. Now, when they start to feel sick they usually tell me after they have cleared it on their own. They will come to me and say Mom, guess what? I had a headache, it is gone now. I changed it! What a gift for a mother! With the tools of Access, parenting just gets easier and easier!

What if You Woke Up to a New Body Every Day?

People see their bodies as a fairly permanent structure. They will allow for growing as children, aging as an adult, some weight loss or gain over the years and a few diseases; but that is about it. Are you aware of how much change your body is generating every day? What might surprise you to know is that our bodies are actually in a state of constant flux; with new cells and changes in its structure being generated continuously!

You may have the point of view that your body is a certain age based on your birth date. Maybe you think it is 20, 30, or 40 years old- but your body is actually much, much younger!

Let’s take a look inside your body

Your hair is 3 to 6 years old, depending on how long grows.

Your liver is about 5 months old.

Your red blood cells are only 4 months old.

Your skin is a few weeks old

Your intestinal tract is like a newborn babe, only a few days old, with new cells generating daily.

Bones are what most people would consider the most solid part of your body. When I was in graduate school I did research on bone density and do you know what I found? You can measurably change the density of your bones by lying in bed for one week. In just a week, the density of your bones will be measurably lower.

Not only are most of your organs much younger than you think but the age of cells can only be determined by looking at the DNA itself because every other molecule in our cells is changing and being replaced too fast to quantify. The individual cell may be only 2 weeks old on your skin but inside that cell, the molecules creating it are themselves even newer.

So how do we create our body? Here’s an interesting point of view:

An incredible amount of the creation of our body daily is from our points of view, projections, expectations, separation and judgments of our bodies. If you are projecting that your body is getting old, ugly, sick or fat then that is the “invocation,” the “spell” you are using to create it. We are much more powerful than we know and our bodies our very adept at creating themselves continuously from our stupid, erroneous and judgmental points of views.

How many times a day do you judge your body? More than a thousand or less? For most people, they think or even say aloud hundreds of judgments about their body each and every day.

It is the judgment, spoken or unspoken, that you are using to let the body know how it should to create for you every day. And although your body needs to constantly change, or lest it would die, what it ends up doing is constantly change into the same fixed points of view you have based on the judgments and projections and expectations you are giving it.

It creates the same thing every day, with a little aging and dis-ease attached. We just re-generate what we have from judgment. What if we could generate something new and different with our bodies? What could be possible with our bodies we have never considered?

Here’s what you can hear in any coffee shop or telephone call on a normal day

“I didn’t get any sleep.” “I am so tired.” “My body hurts.” “My stomach hurts.” “My back is killing me.” “I’m getting old.” “I’m starting to look like my mother!” This is how we are telling our bodies over and over what to do for us. What your body hears is, “Be tired.” “Get old.” “Start hurting.” “Make more disease here.” “Age like your mother.”

What if there is a different possibility? What if you asked your body a question? “What would it take for us to feel amazing today, body?” “What fun could we have?” “What magic can you generate for me today?” “What joy of embodiment could you gift me today?” “Body what would you like to look like?” “What magic could we create together, body? “Hey Body! I’m so grateful for you!”

And one of my favorites, “How does it get even better than this?” Ask this question for everything that shows up in your body, whether it is a fabulous day or a funky one.

What if age was just a point of view?

Could aging and dis-ease really be just a judgment and fixed points of view?

If the body is so youthful and vigorous, and so amazingly capable of renewing itself, couldn’t we create something different?

If you changed your point of view about your body and stopped judging it, could it generate something different? Yes. My point of view, and also my awareness after working with thousands of bodies around the world is exactly that.

The body is already generating brand new every day! So what if we started asking it a question? What if we contributed something besides judgment to assist it in changing? What if we nurtured its generation each day?

My question is, what is possible with the change our body is already creating if we were to contribute to the change? If we were asking questions instead of putting our heads in the sand.

Doesn’t the body just do what it’s going to do and we have to deal with it?

Does it seem like the body just does what it does and you are just the effect of what it chooses? What if you actually have more effect on what your body creates than you think? If you were willing to be totally aware of your body at its most subtle levels…which is possible when you open up a communication with your body…wouldn’t it let you know when it liked what you were doing or disliked what you were doing to it?

And what if what we’ve been calling sickness, fatigue, or pain was simply your body giving you a message of what isn’t working for it?

Often we misinterpret the energy of our body changing as something being wrong or a pain or a problem. When you feel something in your body you can ask it “ Body are you changing? If it feels light to you, if you get a yes then ask how you can contribute.

You are not helpless with your body you are the most powerful creator of it. What would you like to choose?

A different possibility

What if there is a different possibility and what if it was actually easier than you could imagine? What if you could contribute to the change that is occurring all the time and ask your body for something different? When you do not judge your body but instead ask it for something different and then contribute your energy to the change… You might just get a different result.

Action steps to take today open a dialogue with your body

✓ Ask your body what foods it would like to eatBefore ingesting anything into your body, put the food or medicine or supplement out in front of you. Ask your body if it wants to ingest the thing you are holding. If it sways towards the food or drink, that is a “YES!” If it sways backwards, away from it, that is a “NO!”

✓ Ask your body to show you what it would like to look likeEach body is created differently. And the idea YOU have about what you want your body to look like may be quite different than what it desires. Start asking and be aware of where your body brings your attention to. This may take days or even weeks, but your body will begin to ‘show’ you what it wants to look like. Sometimes it will be someone on television, or in the park, or on a billboard ad, but you will notice that your body is drawn towards what IT wants to look like. Then ask your body to show you what it requires to change so it’s more like that!

✓ Ask your body what it would like to wearInstead of just putting clothes on in the morning, ask first! “Body, what would you like to wear today?” You might be surprised! Be willing for your body to start asking you for different materials, or clothes that fit differently or are a different style than you’ve been accustomed to. But one thing is for sure, when you wear what your body wants to wear, you will look and feel amazing!

Something greater is possible… The Access Body process workshops are phenomenal at beginning to undo the separation that we create with our bodies. In the 3 Day Body Class and The Advanced Body class there are over 100 different, incredible, magical energetic body process that can assist in changing bodies in ways you can’t even imagine. They can help to create more ease asking your body questions and being able to hear its whispers so your ability to talk to it can be exponetialized. There are processes for changing age, increasing joy, making your face more beautiful, improving your sex life, for your body to not be stuck by the judgments of this reality and so many more that work differently with every single body….The Access body processes can be one way you contribute to the change your body is generating every day. And they may also allow you to wake up some of the amazing magical abilities and capacities your body and only your body has that can contribute to other bodies and the planet. I know that so many of the thousands of people who have taken the 3 Day Body Class and The Advanced Body class (including me more than 10 times!) are grateful for the greater EASE they have with their bodies, the improved ability to communicate with their body, the new awareness of the sense of space that is available for all bodies and much much more!

If your body is changing all the time what can you be that would allow it to change into something that would work greater for both of you. A Joy of Embodiment is possible you only have to choose to have it! ~ Dr. Glenna Rice, DPT

Are You Willing to Be a Bad Mom?

An invaluable tool for all moms, that gives you the ability to stop judging you and create more ease with parenting so works for you and your kids.

What would it take to be a bad mother?

To be a truly great mother you have to be willing to be a bad mother. When you are willing to receive the judgments that you are a bad mother as just someone’s interesting point of view then you can be the phenomenal mother you truly be.

How does this tool work? Once you become a mother everyone will share with you their judgments about the correct, right and good way to raise your kids. They will give you advise on how to deliver your baby, how to nurse, what to feed your kids, if you should stay home or go back to work, what activities your kids should do, if you should discipline your kids, what college they should go to and on and on. If you make these judgments real at all you can never see what would actually work for you or them. Instead you stop being you and discount what you know to avoid their judgments. If you are willing to be a bad mom then any judgements you get from your kids, the neighbors or your mother will not be able to stick you because you are already willing to receive them, you have allowance for what they think and it is just interesting. You never need to resist or react to the judgments and make your choices wrong, you can choose how to parent for you and create something greater than you could imagine.

This tool allows you to never have to fit in to this realities insanity about parenting. Like this insane view, if you are a good mother you have to sacrifice your life for your kids. Have you ever heard anyone say “I would give up my life for my children”? This is supposed to be a good thing? No, it is crazy! What child would want their parent to give themselves up for them? I never wanted that for my mom, I wanted her to be amazing! Giving your life up for your children does not show them how to be phenomenal it shows them how to be limited. I want my 3 children to be phenomenal. When we as parents choose greater over sacrifice then we show our children how to choose that for their future too. In this reality sacrifice is the right way to parent, a bad mother would create greater than this. Are you willing to be a bad mother and create a greater life and an amazing future for you and your kids without sacrificing you?

Sometimes the hardest judgements we receive are those from our own children. Here are two stories to where using the tool created wonderful changes I would never have considered.

Years ago, when they were in elementary school, I put the wrong sandwiches in the girl’s lunch boxes, one got tuna and one peanut butter and they both hated the sandwiches they got. When I picked them up from school I got a litany of how awful it was for them at lunch. I turned to them and said, “I am sorry, I am a really bad mom, I don’t’ know how to do this stuff right, maybe I need your help.” I did not get upset, resist or react to what they were complaining about. The girls both said “oh no you are not a bad mom at all, you are the best mom ever” and started making their own lunches.

Recently my older daughter had a very difficult day at school and she was seriously down in the dumps. Than night she left the house and didn’t tell me. When I found out where she had gone I was pissed. My Son, who is 20, laid into me about how I was acting. He said, “You are terrible, you are going to get mad at her when she is depressed, what kind of mother are you?” I started to react and argue with him, defend myself, tell him I wouldn’t do that, that is not what is going on, etc. Then I remembered the tool, be willing to be a bad mom, be willing to receive his judgments as just an interesting point of view. I expanded out, become more space and repeated in my head, “what it would take to be willing to be a bad parent?, interesting point of view he has this point of view.”

What this changed was amazing. He stopped judging me. There was no more space in my world for what he was saying to stick me. The, I have to be a good mom button was gone. He started to tear up and I asked what was up for him. He started to talk about things that were troubling him about his future. He had been worried that when he finished his degree in engineering he would end up stuck in a job that would be boring that he hated and he would become depressed. Wow, that was not where I would have thought the conversation about his sister would go. This opened the door for an amazing generative conversation full of questions about his future and how to create a future that would work for him. I was able to show him a totally different possibility beyond this reality. I said yes you may end up in a boring engineering job and when you do you will change it or get a new job and you can do this as often as you like, just like I did, just like your dad did. You will never be able to do a boring job, you are too creative and you can change anything. What if every job you had was better than the last? In this reality staying at the same job for 20 years is valuable, what if it wasn’t, what if that is not true for you? For my son the question could be would you be willing to be a bad engineer and create something greater than you could imagine, just like the willingness to be a bad mom creates something greater than you imagine.

A question always opens the door to possibilities.

Dr. Glenna Rice, DPT, The Questionable Parent

I Asked a Question

At a myofascial release workshop in Sedona, in 2004, during a break, I sat down in front of this gigantic ant hill. While watching the ants going up and down and up and down a thought bellowed in my head, “oh my god, that is just like my life! Then I asked a question that changed my life…

At the time, I was a mother of 3, my youngest was 11 months old and I was married to a “Doctor” who I had just spent 6 years in Boston with, supporting the family working as a Pediatric Physical Therapist while he finished a Masters and Ph.D. in Aeronautical Engineering from MIT. He now had an excellent job, at a top-rate consulting company and was earning great money. We lived in one of the finest suburbs in the US with exceptional public schools. We were both highly educated professionals. My kids were in activities galore and I had just opened up my dream Physical Therapy practice. I was the consummate professional suburban upper middle class soccer mom and I had made it! My life should have been fabulous but it was so far from fabulous it was crazy. I was miserable. Except when I was enjoying my kids or working on patients in my office, I was unhappy and frustrated. I was angry much of the time, mostly in the evenings, felt overwhelmed with all the activates, 3 young kids and everything else I was doing. Whoever I was, I had no idea and she barely existed in the life I was creating. I looked normal and successful. I had done everything I was supposed to do in this reality, and done it well and very little of it was working for me. I was married to a man who judged me relentlessly for not earning more money and for being angry and I judged myself even more. I cried most nights, often in the day and remember saying over and over again to myself “don’t get mad tonight when he comes home” and as soon as I would hear that garage door open I would be angry. I did not have the question yet of, who that belonged to?

So in Sedona, I observed at these ants running up and down that hill. I lived on a hill and was driving up and down it at least 10 times a day. I just kept thinking about how insane my life was and then I noticed something. They were not angry! They were just being ants.

I asked a question that changed my life. “What would it take for me not to be so angry?”

Amazingly, everything in the Universe will begin to work with you and contribute to you when you ask a question. I had no inkling at the time the changes and possibilities I was creating for my future that day. I am so grateful I asked that question and what a marvelous gift that gigantic ant hill was for me!

I came home from the workshop to a voice mail from the midwife who had delivered my youngest daughter. She had fallen off a ladder the day after I saw that ant hill and hurt her back and was in need of good body worker. After a few visits she referred her ex-husband to me who had ruptured his Achilles’ tendon. He was an Access Facilitator. After a few months, I agreed to trade with him which was odd for me. The first session, he did this weird stuff, asked questions and cleared limitations with these strange poc and pod words, that I at the time rolled my eyes at. But it changed things, I felt really different, easier, more peaceful. I then went to some Access clearing nights and things got even easier. I learned some amazing questions to ask, like who does that belong to for every thought, feeling and emotion I had. I realized how aware of energy I was and what I could do with bodies in my practice started changing dynamically. The feedback was amazing. It was so odd, this stuff, so outside my normal box. But I knew it was doing something different and that I wanted more. I learned that if it feels light it is true for you and it is heavy it is a lie and realized how much of the life I was living was a huge lie! What would it take for everything to change?

Soon after my husband came to me and asked for a divorce. I was dumbfounded. I had never even considered that possibility. Breaking up the family, never, single parent, never, ever, ever, kids need an intact family. I would never do that to the kids. Yes I had a lot of decisions at the time. I didn’t know what to say to him but this little voice in my head said “I could do that? You mean, I could actually do that, really?” It felt so light, I was trying not to smile. You are definitely not supposed to smile at a time like that, it is way too serious. I said, ok.

He was out the next day. About 50% of my anger went away. It was never mine. When he came back to get his things I felt angry and asked who does this belong to and it was gone, just gone. He was angry and he still is. I just no longer am the effect of it. It is his point of view. It was so easy. During the divorce which was definitely sticky at times, I asked a lot of questions and used the Access Mantra often “All of life comes to me with ease, joy and glory” and found even a divorce with child support battles and ugliness can actually be easy. All of life, not just the pretty stuff can happen with ease. Asking questions like, “how can this work for me better than I could ever possibly imagine?” allowed me to receive the support of everything around me so it could work for me. Even the court systems can work for you if you ask! I was now including myself in the equation of my life probably for the first time ever. It was remarkable!

I started attending every single Access class I could get to. I started teaching classes, became a facilitator by the next year. Now 8 years later I am rarely angry, and if I am, I have tons of tools to ask to change it quickly. My live is fuller and busier than I could ever imagine and I enjoy all of it. I am a single mom raising the kids on my own, something I didn’t want to be and now I think being a single mom may be one of the best kept secrets in the world!

The kids are still in the great school district and just like with the courts we ask “how can the school work for my kids better than they could ever possibly imagine?” My oldest has just started college studying engineering (It is now pretty clear why he picked his dad) and my middle daughter is a stunning and confident freshman in high school. They have all attended many, many classes and use the tools all the time. The way my children BE in the world is an inspiration to me and the people they meet daily. My youngest daughter’s 2nd grade teacher commented to me that she was one of the “most aware and intuitive child she had ever had and that her classroom would change and come to life as soon as she came in.” My children are phenomenal and have told me they are glad their dad and I are divorced because we are both happier now. Who would have guessed that 9 years ago?

One of the changes I never expected when I chose to include me in the equation of my life is seeing how it has allowed my children to have that choice also. They have this awareness that I never had when I was that age. That the entire universe will support them in what they choose, limitations are not real and it is absolutely OK to have a life that works for them!

Now, I teach Access classes on parenting and bodies all over the world and am booked months in advance. I still have my dream practice and it is better than I could imagine. I have facilitated thousands of people in my classes, on the radio and in private sessions to use the Access tools, to be a question and see a different possibly in their lives. Now that I include me in the equation of my life it has become a phenomenal adventure and celebration with a future full of infinite possibilities. How does it get even better than that?